Omaha daily bee., 1887-01-12
THE VANISHING LADY.
one of Herrmann's Cloverest Fcats
Shown Up.

One of Hermann S tricks which mysti
fed the audience last night was that of
the vanishing lady," The BEE of Octo.
ber 10 contained an article which OK.
posed the feat in its entirety. For the
benefit of those who witnessed the per-
formance last night, as well rs for those
who did not, the article is reproduced:
"rhe Vanishing Lady is the wonder of
the town. She was invented by Duaticr
de Kalta, Paris conjurer, and she has
been performing Mt the Eden theatre
there. She is also pu2zling the public in
London and Berlin. The secret of her
illusion has been kept in those cites and
scientists have written theories about her
as learned and conicctural as those
which Poe devoted 10 the chess automa
ton. The inventor has an agent in New
York to sell her at 500 per copy. He
has made dozen sales. Every
purchaser is astonishcd by the simplicity v
of the trick he has acquired, and puzzle d
anew to command the manual skill to
utilize it. Dexterously performed, the
feat is like this: The necromancer ap.
pears in full dress; A pretty girl ac.
companies him. He talks to her pleas
antly while he moves about the stage,
and presently he picks up chair. With
seeming carelessness he places it in about
the middle OF the stage, on an open news.
paper. The girl seats herself, assuming
the ordinary, womanly, restful position,
From the table he takes large piece of
foulard silk,a fabric not transparent, but
sufficiently soft to show the form of the
her and the chair, still talking, he in an
instant lifts the veil. The girl is not
there. The chair is left exactly as il
stood before she sat in it; the newspaper
is beneath it precisely ash was placed
No sounds have been heard in the mean
time; there is no darkonng of the stage,
even the silk covering has shown no
shrinkage, but preserved, its form up to
the moment it was lifted by the fakir.
How is it done? Very simply. Every
body correctly guesses that a trap is used
but the Investigator stops there, defeated.
The chair, the newspaper, the trap, the
confederate below the stage, and
bright, slim girl, are the things that
are used. The chair is not, as it looks,
an ordinary article. 1t is of the
heavy, old-fashoned mahogany kind,
without rounds, thickly upholstered on
the seat, with an open back. 1t is so
built that by touching concealed spring
the seat Is made to drop down from the
rear on n hinge, leaving the girl free to
sink down the trap, which is manipulated
by the confederate below the stage.
There being no rungs on the chair, the
girl has an easy job. When the illusion
ist has seated her he throws over her
head the silk veil. AT the moment she
feels herself completely covered, she
works another spring, which causes n
thin wire framework TO rise up from the
back of the char and spread itself about
her form, thus preserving undisturbed
the outlines of the cloth, and deceiving
the audience into the belief that she is
still seated. The mystery of the open
newspaper spread under the chair to
XIII any suggestion of trap, is even
simpler. The paper has been dettly cut
so as to contain a trap-openlng in itself.
1t is so handled by the operator as not to
reveal the slit, and when he gathers it up
after the trick he is careful to fold it
partly at least. His own work consists,
first, in spreading the newspaper SO that
the trap cut in it shall cover exactly the
trap in the stage; and, second, in setting
the chair precisely over both traps. He
ought to be clever in talking, to divert
the spectators attention from both
newspaper and chair, and the more
he speaks OF the absence of trap the
better he can puzzle those who are watch
ing him. OF course, he cannot submit
either the chair or newspaper to inspec-
tion. The trap used in the stage is the
ordinary demons drop, of good size
After the girl has passed through, the
confederate below the stage puts his
hand up and springs to its place the
hinged seat in the chair. Then he raps,
and the ilIIusionlst above knows all is
ready for him to pull the veil away.
Added mystery is gained by making the
girl run out into the auditorium as soon
as she can. A neat sleightof hand man
can also cause the veil itself to dlsap-
pear up his sleeve after he has lifted it.